Memories made with iPad2

Emery Diercks records video of her daughter Alex assembling a poem Friday afternoon at the Smoky Hill River Festival. Diercks got her new iPad2 about a month ago. (photo by Mike Strand / Salina Journal) | Buy Journal Photos

6/11/2011
By MICHAEL STRAND Salina Journal

There are easily thousands of cameras and camera phones prowling the Smoky Hill River Festival this weekend -- but Emery Diercks was carrying something that made those look so February.

She got her iPad2 about a month ago and was hauling it around the festival Friday, taking photos and video of anything and everything she came across.

"I have no idea!" she said, when asked what she planned to do with what might turn out to be hours of video -- everything from various offerings at the Four Rivers Craft Show to daughter Alex, 10, building a poem out of magnetized words to the Love Canon String Band playing a bluegrass-tinted cover of "She Blinded Me With Science."

"I'll figure out what to do with it all later," she said. "Some of it will probably end up on Facebook."

Diercks also said she has friends who couldn't attend the festival this year, and she wants to show them what they're missing.

"I love going through the crafts, the handmade stuff," she said. "I try to buy something small every year. I love how authentic this stuff is."

Diercks left her iPad2 on as she wandered the festival, its screen showing whatever she was looking at.

"It's got a great battery," she said. "I have it on all day, from 8:30 in the morning until 11, and it's still got like 15 percent."

It also will replace a heavy bag of books when she goes to college this fall.

"I'll have all my books on here, my alarm clock, a bill-minder, several days of music -- all without making a dent in its memory," she said.

As Alex placed her poem on the wall, Diercks zoomed in with the iPad's video camera.

"I just learned how to zoom last night," she said. "My husband showed me how to do it; he's the type who reads the manual."

n Reporter Mike Strand can be reached at 822-1418 or by email at mstrand@salina.com.

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